Manchester City
Manchester City Manchester City have spent much of their recent history being Manchester United’s poorer, shitter relations, but these days they are United’s richer, shitter relations. Aside from a very short period of success in the late 1960s and early 1970s inspired by Francis “Frannie” Lee, Manchester City have very rarely done anything worth talking about. City’s supporters are almost always referred to as ‘long-suffering fans’ due to their miserable existence of watching city rivals United lift football’s biggest trophies while they mournfully drone listless ballad ‘Blue Moon’ as their heroes draw with Fulham. During the 1990s, City went all the way down to League One before coming back up and resuming business as usual in mid-table of the Premier League. Reluctantly forced to manage someone other than Newcastle United, Kevin Keegan came in after City were relegated again in 2001. Between barking incoherent rhetoric and swaying from side to side during interviews, Keegan did a decent job, but he left in 2005 to watch daytime TV and wait for the Newcastle job to become available, passing the reins to popular psychopath Stuart Pearce, who was appointed as caretaker manager. Managerial novice Pearce was an instant hit and he landed the job permanently. The dangerously pumped up former defender charged up and down the sideline, kicking every ball (often literally) and gave team talks so fierce several players would often return for the second half openly weeping. But after a while City stopped scoring goals and only managed 10 at home in the whole of 2006-07. Fairly understandably fans weren’t thrilled at this new development and even the magnificent gimmick of bringing on flighty goalkeeper David James as a striker didn’t save Pearce from the axe. Foreign owners, same old shit In June 2007, former Thailand Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra bought the club. It was a somewhat surprising career move for the exiled politician and alleged tyrant. Some journalists suggested that Thaksin was hoping to keep Amnesty International off his back by working with City’s long-suffering fans. Still struggling with English, Shinawatra gave an unorthodox press conference in which he pledged to: ‘rule over the club like I did in Thailand, using an iron fist’ and ‘to crush anyone who opposes me like a bug’. Fans nicknamed him ‘Frank’ because his surname sounded a tiny bit like Sinatra. Although this was a grave insult to Shinawatra and everything he stood for, he grinned through it with the manic smile of man who has done terrible things in his life. Shinawatra opted to bring in critic-splitter Sven-Goran Eriksson as manager. Eriksson did an excellent job, leading City to UEFA Cup qualification but Shinawatra for no apparent reason announced in late April that he would be sacking Sven in the summer, possibly as a misjudged attempt to summon the new manager effect. Instead City lost 8-1 to Middlesbrough. Strangely, Eriksson was even allowed to lead the team on their pre-season tour before he was finally sacked and slunk off to manage Mexico (badly). Shinawatra’s reign of bemusement ended in September 2008, weeks after a court in Thailand found him guilty of being a massive crook. He sold the club to rich Arab Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The City fans struggled to find a catchy nickname for the new owner, but they didn’t care too much because he was amongst the richest men in the world and promised to sign ‘a million top players.’ Al Nahayan later downgraded that boast to ‘one really decent player and a few others you’ve heard are good on Football Manager.’ Tiresome Welsh tactician Mark Hughes was brought in and early in the new era City managed the unrealistic signing of Robinho for £32.5m. Sadly, after a promising period, the ex-Real Madrid man became stroppy, fucked off to Brazil most weeks, allegedly raped a girl in Leeds and moaned about how he thought he had signed for Manchester United. Nonetheless, bagging such a big name seemed to go to the heads of City’s directors and they tried to sign Milan star Kaka. Chief executive Garry Cook was given the task of travelling to Milan to secure a deal. In an ill-judged gesture, Cook unloaded a tanker full of 10 million £1 coins at Milan’s Milanello training ground to try and woo Kaka. Several youth team players drowned in the torrent of money, while Kaka swallowed several coins and was sidelined for three weeks. “Who is Manchester City? And why do they send this oaf Cook to reign money upon me?” a bemused Kaka lamented. “Kaka likes money, but he likes playing for a good team more.” Despite trying to spend a shitload of cash, City still have players like Richard Dunne and Wayne Bridge and are one of those teams you get in the UEFA Cup. Famous Fans Well-known City fans include increasingly bland indie rockers Oasis and boxer Ricky Hatton. The club keeps quiet about less glamorous supporters such as banking klutz Nick Leeson....all this written by a Rag.. Notable Players Bert Trautmann (1949-64) Francis Lee (1967-74) Niall Quinn (1990-96) Paulo Wanchope (2000-04) David Seaman (2003-04) DaMarcus Beasley (2006-07) Manchester City on Back of the Net News Man City 'Will Sign God In Next 24 Hours'. Read more Barry savours move to slightly worse team. Read more Category:Clubs